André Pollack

A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.

"Merlusse" is French schoolboy slang for codfish, and M. Blanchard, a professor at a certain lycée, was known to his victims by that name. On Christmas Eve, when some twenty of the students—orphans, foreigners or just plain "unwanteds"—had to remain in the boarding school, Merlusse is placed in charge. His glass eye glares at them stonily, his good one with no less severity. He sets them to tasks, marches like a proctor up and down the aisles, exacts to the utmost the last measure of discipline. But when the youngsters awake in the morning, there are toys by each bed in the dormitory and M. Blanchard, no longer to be called Merlusse, is exposed for the softhearted fraud he is.

Is it because his father was a groom that Adhémar Pomme has a long horse head and a horse- toothed smile? Maybe but the fact is that his head has invariably caused laughter whatever the circumstances, which is the tragedy of his life. After having worked as an undertaker, a theater prompter, a casino bouncer, and so on, and failing at each job, he applies out of desperation to an institution where those rejected for physical reasons can hide and live together. But Adhémar immediately starts... laughing at them and gets kicked out as a result! In the end though, he finds his way as a circus artist.

Completely ruined, André is left with nothing more than the clothes on his back. He is hired as a controller in a small theater and there meets his wife, from whom he is in the process of divorcing. She tells him that he has just recieved an inheritance and that she still loves him.

Carolyn de Sayn was married at the age of sixteen, against her will, to the Prince of Wittgenstein, much older than herself. A few years later, she met Franz Liszt, whose fame had already conquered the whole of Europe. Taking advantage of her husband's absence, the young woman invites the musician to her estate in Woronince. When Franz confesses his love for her, she finds it easier to fight her own feelings.

Mme Beaudrier, the wife of a Parliamentary Senator, hurls a pastry at visiting King Joan IV of Cerdagne, sparking off a series of farcical events involving all levels of the government and their mistresses.

A gang of drug pushers is rampant on the French Riviera. The police has been informed and arrests an accomplice who is about to collect the drugs dropped off from a yacht. This person happens to be a public figure of a nearby village...

A greedy advertising executive wants to attract the tourists into a small village:he claims Napoleon slept in the local inn on his was back from Elbe island.

Georges Pinson, who wants to spend his holidays on the riviera with his wife and his two kids,buys a car.His neighbors and the drivers who overtake him gibe at him.

The guitarist Moncho, singer Roberto and their impresario, arrive in Paris to find the fortune and the celebrity. They live in Montmartre in a pension that receives an impressive sampling of circus artists and music halls. They meet Maria-Rosa with whom they make a number, and this is glory.

Mr. Topaze (Arnaudy) is a hard-working, honest, scrupulous teacher at a school run by a corrupt principal. When he fails to raise the grades of the daughter of a wealthy patron, he's fired, only to soon be hired as a "tutor" by the mistress of a local politician. This is merely a ruse, to get Topaze's honorable name attached to a dodgy business deal. Ever a man of trust and honor, Topaze is the last to twig, but, once he gets a taste for ill-gotten gains, he begins to settle old scores.

Cigalon (Alexandre Arnaudy) manages a restaurant in a small town in Provence. A chef with a high opinion of his past culinary achievements, he makes no effort to attract customers and is rude to those who venture into his establishment expecting to be fed. To Cigalon, gastronomy is the greatest of all the arts, and so he is naturally aghast when a former laundress named Madame Toffi (Marguerite Chabert) opens a restaurant next door to his. Madame Toffi does not share his elevated notions and intends to serve meals to the general public - an appalling prospect! While Cigalon's restaurant remains empty, Madame Toffi's is always busy. To prove he's the better chef, Cigalon must now start catering to the whims of paying customers or be forced out of business.